Samsung top 4G smartphone vendor in India in 3Q '16: CMR

Cyber Media Research (CMR) expects handset shipments to clock 265 million by the end of calender 2016, of which 116 million would be smartphones.Kalyan Parbat | ET Bureau | November 21, 2016, 16:36 IST

According to CMR, a mismatch between technology roadmaps and user priorities is the prime reason why the plain vanilla feature phone market will not be wiped out anytime soon.KOLKATA: Samsung continued to dominate India’s high-end smartphone space with a 32.1% market share in the 4G phones category, followed by China’s Lenovo (14.6%) and Lyf (10.7%) in the third quarter of calender 2016, although the country is far from becoming a “smartphones only” market anytime soon with feature phones still accounting for 59% of the overall mobile phone turf.

Cyber Media Research (CMR) expects handset shipments to clock 265 million by the end of calender 2016, of which 116 million would be smartphones.

Samsung, it said, also dominated the super-premium smartphones space, notching up a 49.2% market share followed by Apple at second spot (43.3%) and Sony Mobile, a distant third, with a 5.3% market share.

India shipped 197.5 million mobile handsets by the end of September 2016, of which 78.4 million were shipped alone in the third quarter of calender 2016, said CMR in its third-quarter handset markets review.

Korea’s Samsung also topped the overall mobile handsets category in the third quarter, with a 24.6% market share, followed Lenovo (10.4%) and Micromax (7.5%).

“Time has come when things need to be looked at holistically to increase the relevance of smartphones in the lives of a wider user base,” said Kawoosa.

According to CMR, a mismatch between technology roadmaps and user priorities is the prime reason why the plain vanilla feature phone market will not be wiped out anytime soon.

“While the ecosystem is working on making data services more affordable, accessible and meaningful, a majority of subscribers are looking for reliable voice communications,” said Kawoosa.

This, according to him, is a key reason why newest 4G operator Reliance Jio Infocomm is working on innovative models for launching VoLTE-enabled 4G feature phones to tap into the voice potential.

In fact, CMR report reveals that a whopping 83% of 4G smartphones shipped in the third quarter supported VoLTE.VoLTE allows an operator to offer both voice and data without switching between bands, with voice being just another application that rides on an LTE data network.

According to the report, every second 4G smartphone (shipped in the third quarter) using a third-party chipset solution had a Qualcomm chipset.